How do I preserve fog of war when moving a token between maps?

[jharp]

Moon,

In the extension I moved the FoW retention to outside the db.xml. Maybe that would be a better long term retention solution. Marker in the character that is only called upon when that map is loaded and that character placed on the map.

Jason

[Laerun]

Realisticly, is FoW necessary in most cases? We generally don't need to recall dungeons or regions already explored, unless it is at a cross road.

To consider a FoW like need implies more of a video game like experience, which is not necessarily bad, but it does seem like more of a concern over what the functionality of the maptools can or cannot do as opposed to the actual game needs.

If I wandered around in the dim light of my own dwelling long enough, I will eventually learn to know the position of the layout, location, and approximate appearance of my own lair. I can walk around in the dark practically with less risk or concern. I do still bump into things still.. Lol. However, visiting a totally new and different area, with different lighting and only one or two times does not grant me the same amount of comfort or familiarity to move about like I would in a space that I have many more months or years of familiarity with.

Moving between maps has some other things that cannot be helped by normal means. There is an extension that helps with this, but I doubt FoW is addressed in most cases regardless. Not having the FoW memory or transferable might be annoying occasionally, but it's certainly not at all game breaking. If you are the game master, you certainly have the creative license to use the lack of map FoW memory. You have a chance to use the fear of the known and unknown to toy with your group, and this creates more opportunities to tell the story rather than allowing the maptools to mostly doing that for you. FoW is a VTT tool, but I doubt it is realistic or required feature for most situations. Whatever happened to the person in your group that was supposed to sketch the direction your group had been to before.. :-)

Quick question and a curiosity, how long have you been playing RPGs and Fantasy Grounds?

[jharp]

Even though I make money from everyone that wants this feature enough, I would still prefer the GM have a choice with the base product. I don't think everyone will agree on the need but for some GMs and groups they obviously want the option.

Jason

[ChrisRevocateur]

Since FG can't handle extremely large maps, I can name one case that is fairly common where the remembering of FoW over a whole campaign is a useful feature: Megadungeons. Undermountain, Rappan Athuk, Arden Vul, "The Worlds Largest Dungeon," etc. Not exactly an uncommon campaign type, and one that currently has major issues trying to use the current FG features to run.

I agree that for the VAST majority of campaigns keeping FoW in perpetuity is a bit much, but that doesn't mean that there aren't fairly common use cases where it isn't.

[LordEntrails]

Another possibility than keeping full LOS data, is to convert the data to Mask data (which I think can safely assume to be significantly smaller), and is why I posted the second idea informer link to the suggestion I made there to create such a capability. Though there are certainly many possible solutions one could implement.

Good discussion and even better to know that addressing this desire is on Moon's radar for addressing at some point.

[Carlos]

Realisticly, is FoW necessary in most cases? We generally don't need to recall dungeons or regions already explored, unless it is at a cross road.
Quick question and a curiosity, how long have you been playing RPGs and Fantasy Grounds?

I do think FoW is very useful for tracking in larger dungeons (as noted here with references to popular mega-dungeons which can be split into multiple images).

Players enjoy coming back again and again to a familiar dungeon, remembering which door they opened, where they went, and letting the map be the "journal" of their exploration.

I've been playing RPG's for 20+ years, and Fantasy Grounds since the very first version released.

In many ways the "map mask" was as simple design that just worked, and for some maps I continue using them.

However, that is not the point, the point is that we have newer features like LOS and FoW which we want to make use of to lift us out of the cycle of manual map mask maintenance.

[Rylan Storm]

All I can say is, run Dungeon of the Mad Mage and then tell me you don't need this feature.

Your players will move between maps so frequently you'll be so frustrated by the end of it.

[Klandare]

All I can say is, run Dungeon of the Mad Mage and then tell me you don't need this feature.

Your players will move between maps so frequently you'll be so frustrated by the end of it.

This one is SSSSSOOOOO true.

I would think that the function of the FoW being moved out of the db.xml is the most logical method of resolving the issue of bloat. Basically each map/image would have a FoW when tokens are applied to it.

[damned]

My guess is that especially on dungeons like DoMM you will regret retaining all the FoW data as your DB size will grow significantly and it will impact your game performance in so many other ways.

[Zacchaeus]

I ran DotMM and never once needed to go back to a previous map.